For the love of Liverpool: FSG prove they’re not playing favourites and can finally boast about their UK investment

It has been a brilliant year for Liverpool’s owners. Fenway Sports Group (FSG) have had the sort of success that their rivals can only dream about.

Not only did Jurgen Klopp’s team win the Champions League last month but their baseball franchise, the Boston Red Sox, are the holders of the World Series title. The Red Sox are in London over the weekend to play the New York Yankees in two games that represent Major League Baseball’s first foray into the European market.

The two parts of FSG’s empire rarely come together. Liverpool have played twice at Fenway Park on US tours and have another game in Boston next month but the clubs have remained at arm’s length. There has been little cross-promotion or synergy between the teams.

That’s largely because of the suspicion on Merseyside felt towards FSG immediately after the takeover in 2010. It took Anfield a long time to recover from the fractious tenure of George Gillett and Tom Hicks. The former owners plunged Liverpool into debt and internal strife and a residual mistrust of Americans lingered around the club.

The reality is that nationality is the only thing John W Henry and his fellow investors in FSG have in common with Gillett and Hicks. Henry, the principal owner, was never going to pump Manchester City-style cash into the team but neither was he looking to make huge profits out of football. What he really wanted to do was win and achieve the same sort of glory he had brought to the Red Sox.

When the 69-year-old took over at Fenway Park in 2002, there was an almost intractable sense of pessimism around the Sox. They had not won a World Series since 1918. A year later they sold Babe Ruth, the sport’s most legendary figure, to the Yankees. Misery endured for decades. “The curse of the Bambino” – Ruth’s nickname – was said to haunt Fenway.